3D Simulated Interactive Drama for Teenagers Coping with a Traumatic Brain Injury in a Parent

Abstract

Abstract. This paper describes the current state of a pedagogical immersive 3D story TBI-SIM and the changes that have been made to it. The system is a narrative simulation in a fully immersive 3D world in which the user controls a character that can interact with non-player characters (NPCs). The users achieve goals and make decisions that have an impact on the course of the story.Keywords: Interactive Drama, Interactive Narrative, Pedagogical Interactive Drama, Pedagogical Narrative Simulations, Educational Games, IDtension, Traumatic Brain Injury. Context Traumatic brain injuryChildren and adolescents undergo a dramatic change in their family life if one of their parents has a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Interactions among family members change rapidly and, often, for the worse; and new responsibilities are thrust upon the child or adolescent, who may be overwhelmed by feelings of guilt, anger or helplessness [2,6]. Our research project aims to develop and deliver educational material to youths faced with TBI of a family member. Based on testimonials we obtained through focus groups and interviews with families, we developed scenarios of everyday situations in an imaginary family in which members have to cope with the father's TBI. Techno-pedagogical environmentThe IDtension interactive drama engine has been used to implement the scenarios [9]. They are then displayed on the Unity game engine [12]. By playing a virtual character involved in short pedagogical stories (with a few goals to achieve), users experience different kinds of behavior. The experience of both usual and unusual situations in a safe simulation environment can be a good basis for further exchange in a real or a virtual focus group, or for therapeutic sessions with a psychologist. The 3D simulation that we developed provides an immersive interactive environment that readily engage users [3,4]. Engagement is reinforced by the narrative nature of the user experience, which focuses on relevant and striking situations, instead of simulating scientifically social relationships within a family. IDtension [9] is the underlying drama engine used to generate narrative actions, which does not rely on any branching or conditional branching mechanism, but generates appropriate actions on the fly, based on narrative rules and algorithms (see [9] for a full description of the engine). As a result, the engine enables a large number of choices, which differentiates the current demonstration from most pedagogical narrative simulations (e.g. Heart Sense [7], Carmen's Bright Ideas [5], FearNot [1] or Scenejo [8]). This larger number of choice aims at providing a greater engagement to the user.The system described in this paper is an improvement over an earlier demonstrated version [10]. Changes covered in this paper are about the scenario, the text-to-speech integration and the end-user interface.

Objective Metrics for Interactive Narrative

“…Note that Flow is also correlated with the Positive emotional state (.535). Note also that the scores for Flow and Positive emotional state are, for the first group 2.81 and 3.23 respectively, in a 5-point Likert scale (1)(2)(3)(4)(5), which correspond to rather high values (see [15] for comparisons with other systems tested with the same scales).…”

“…Both interactive narratives are based on the interactive drama Nothing For Dinner, a playable 3D interactive drama [5], [23]. Nothing For Dinner is generative in the sense that its individual actions and the order of these actions are not prewritten but generated from a calculation.…”

“…Furthermore, the framework is best suited to interactive narrative in which choices are explicitly given to the player, by a menu system for example [5], [9], [11], [19]. Nevertheless, the free input systems where the input is internally converted into one action among a list of possible actions also fit into the framework.…”

“…Typically, as we deal with interactivity, it should be commonplace to measure the number of choices given to the player on average. However, this measure is only rarely adopted (but see [5], [20]). …”

Meta matters in interactive storytelling and serious gaming : a play on worlds

“…The disruptive behaviour of traumatized individuals can affect family life, which constitutes the challenge for players of this simulation. Stepping away from the traditional distinction between strong autonomy and strong story approaches, Nothing for Dinner takes on an approach not unlike that of Façade (Habonneau, Richle, Szilas & Dumas, 2012). 2 It is based on IDtension, a narrative idtension engine for interactive drama which models the narrative logic of a storyworld to generate appropriate actions (Szilas, 2007).…”